Formalization has led contemporary economics to turn its back on the study of capitalism as the social order to which it owes its origins and its intrinsic analytical focus. As a consequence, contemporary economics turns a blind eye to the empirical analysis of capital accumulation, the real‐world properties of markets, and the bifurcation of political power that endow capitalism with its unique historical properties. Instead, economics takes scientific, not social, analysis as its model, a view that gives an ideological cast to its findings.